by R.A. LaShea
*****
Healing powers of hot water pummeling her sore shoulders a few minutes later, Beck tried not to think about what she and Williams found on the victim’s laptop. Or what they didn’t.
“This guy spent a lot of time on here,” Williams had declared when they finally got into Anthony Figueroa’s computer. “Hours each night.”
“What was he doing?” Beck asked, and it didn’t take much to figure out. Multiple website shortcuts lined up on the desktop, Beck recognized the names as online support groups. Places addicts could go to chat with people going through the same things they were going through. Sites that hosted online meetings.
Pulling up one after another, text populated at last on the screen.
“Is this a running chat?” Beck asked.
“It’s a transcript,” Williams said. “Of Figueroa’s last session. The night before he died.”
“What does it say?”
“I called someone earlier who was a friend of mine before I started using,” Williams read. “He’s a preacher now. I asked if I could come visit him. He told me he would help however he could, but I couldn’t come there. He didn’t say it straight out, but I could tell he didn’t want me around his family. It’s been twenty years, Man. I’ve been clean. But people still treat me like I’m dirty. What am I supposed to do when it feels like this? How do you guys deal with it?”
“What did they tell him?” Beck asked.
“Family. Exercise. Hobbies.”
“And what did Anthony say?”
“That sounds like a lot of work when you can just put a needle in your arm. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Williams was quick to try to assure her, but it only assured Beck he was entertaining the possibility she might be, and they both may have defied Bishop for no good reason.